Where do You Start?

If you had an idea for a product or service and had no idea how to turn your brilliant idea into a business what would you do?

Would you call invent help?

Would you call the bank?

Would you write a business plan?

Would you contact a manufacturer?

Would you go the craft store to get supplies to build a proto-type?

Would you tell anyone?

Would you contact a business lawyer?

What would you do? What would you do?

If you are like most people you have no idea what to do first. You may have heard you should never share your ideas because someone might take it right? You may have been told you should start writing a business plan right? But do you know how to do that and even more important is what would writing a business plan do to take your idea from being an idea to a real business?

Believe it or not there are many people who get paid to come up with ideas and they license those ideas to business people who do all the investing, and all the execution of the business. The downfall of this is as the idea person you would be lucky to get 2-3% of gross revenue from the business and this is negotiable. So you might only get a flat fee for your idea. This just goes to show the money is in the execution of the idea not the ideas its self.

So how would you go from idea to execution?

You could hire business consultants! (very expensive)

You could read books about business (very time consuming)

You could take on a partner who has experience in launching and running businesses ( this could be a good option but you will have to give up some or the majority of your business idea)

You could contact a company like Guthy Renker and license your idea to them. (If the idea is great you might get 1-2% of gross sales)

You could go to the local craft store and start building the product yourself and then go to the street fair/swapmeet to sale it.

You could contact a market research company and pay them to find out what your potential market wants before you start your product /service.

There are literally tons of different things you could do to launch your new venture. In reality there is no right way to do it. Every “Brilliant” idea is not worthy of a business. Just because you think of something does not mean the market will want it. It comes down to finding out the needs of the market then creating a product or service they are currently looking for. If your idea delivers what the people want then you have a good chance for a successful business venture.

By definition entrepreneur means to move a product of service from a lower yielding place to a new higher yielding place. This does not have to be a physical place like say from Tai-land to Japan. It can be in your local city buy low and sell high is the name of the game.

As an entrepreneur it is your job to guide the business and make sure all demands of customers are met. This is hard to do if your have never run a business before or you don’t have a mentor to help you (i.e. an experienced business partner). This is exactly why most businesses fail in the first few years because the entrepreneur at least the new ones drive the business into the ground by not knowing what to do. If you are going to drive across your state and you have never done so before. You are not just going to hop I the car and start driving right? You are going to go get a map or use the GPS on your phone or in your car for directions right?

In fact your idea may have never been thought of before, but the execution of the business is not going to change. Either you learn how to run the business yourself or you surround yourself with the people that can help you execute it.

Many of us have the “Army of One” syndrome where we want to do everything and learn everything. This is the entrepreneur’s worst nightmare because trying to do everything takes away from doing the things that really matter like getting the business and doing the business. If you are not strong at book keeping / accounting don’t waste your time trying to learn to be your company accountant. It is going to take time and that time could be better spent getting more business. Don’t be nickel shy and penny foolish, all because you wanted to do it yourself. Don’t waste your time doing $10.00 hour work when you can pay someone else to do it while you do $100 hr work. It is not worth your time to do $10.00 hour work under any circumstances.